Despite an appeal from Terrance Sullivan — the administrator of community utilities — and advocates of raising water and sewer rates to keep the departments solvent, the five holdout city councilors who voted to strike down the hikes refused to reconsider a second vote on Tuesday.

Neither Chairman Joseph Camara, Michael Miozza, Raymond Mitchell, Linda Pereira nor Daniel Rego made a motion to hold another vote on the rate hikes. Because they are the dissenting councilors, they are the only members of the City Council with the ability to bring the issue back for a vote.

Sullivan said he expects to work with the administration to come up with a plan and go back to the council to request the rate hikes again.

He originally presented the Watuppa Water Board’s proposal to increase water-use fees from $2.25 per hundred cubic feet to $2.60 in the fiscal 2015 budget and request to increase sewer rates from $4.09 per hundred cubic feet to $4.19 from an amended sewer budget for fiscal 2015. Sullivan had initially requested a hike to $4.35.

Sullivan said he wasn’t sure if he’ll be presenting a similar proposal and plans to restart the process next week.

Mayor Will Flanagan said he was very disappointed with the councilors who voted against the rate hikes. He said they were given plenty of information about the necessity of the hikes.

“The City Council had this proposal from January. We met with every councilor on our thought process, and they were briefed on the ramifications on the water and sewer departments."

The opposing councilors have complained that they believe there are too many unknowns in the upcoming fiscal 2015 budget, including a pay-as-you-throw program, net school spending requirements and funding firefighting staffing.

“For myself,” Mitchell said, “I want to see the total budget.”

The administration needs to meet the June 1 deadline to submit the fiscal 2015 budget to the council, which must either approve, reject or decrease the budget by July 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

Flanagan rejected the councilors' contention about the connection between the water and sewer budget and the general budget.

“The water and sewer enterprise funds and budgets stand separate and alone from the general budget,” Flanagan said.

In both a letter and during the meeting, Sullivan warned the councilors that if they don’t approve a hike, he’d be forced to lay off 19 employees. He also said there would be inadequate staffing to respond to emergency repairs, he would need to eliminate sidewalk and trench repair and that the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection would have to intervene.